A Call for Nuance in Thinking About Breast Cancer

Often lost in the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month activity is the disease’s complexity and wide range of diagnoses, treatments, and outcomes. Cynthia Ryan, a two-time breast cancer survivor, past participant in the AACR Scientist↔Survivor Program, and frequentcontributor to Cancer Today, writes in a Los Angeles Times op-ed column that “anecdotes and October headlines barely begin to empower people with the knowledge they’ll need should they be diagnosed with a form of the disease.”

Cover photo: Cynthia Ryan stands with her poster describing her advocacy work at the AACR Annual Meeting 2014 in San Diego. Ryan is the founder of Street Smarts, a cancer awareness program for homeless women in Birmingham, Alabama. She blogs at Cancer Hits the Streets.